Back and Forth
by n00b-masta2112
Summary: "He laughs again, and I find myself missing Haymitch more than anything at that moment.  I miss someone to hate the world with." After the war, after everything, it takes a phone call to drive Katniss from her chair by the fire.
1. Chapter 1

I sit in my mother's old rocker in front of the fireplace, rocking myself slowly back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I clutch the armrests too tightly, my knuckles whitening, my raw skin breaking and bleeding with the force of it. The force of my resistance. Resistance to the pain that is constantly rising to the surface, threatening to consume me.

But I must not break. I must keep fighting. The old instinct to survive is mostly what keeps me going. Not living, but alive. That and Greasy Sae's daily force feeding.

I don't talk to her, or to her granddaughter. She's too lost in her own world anyway.

I don't talk to anyone. I don't pick up the phone, which rings a few times every day. I can't imagine who'd be calling. Cinna's the only one who ever called me back before the Quarter Quell, before the war, but he's gone now...

The only other phones in District 12 are in the other houses in the Victor's Village, and I don't know where Peeta is. Not here. I haven't seen him since before the conclusion of the war, I think. I'm not quite sure. The details of my memories, both old and recent, are all hazy and jumbled. I wonder what Peeta's memories looked like when the tracker jacker venom distorted them to unspeakable terrors. Not like this. Probably worse.

I think they reinstalled Haymitch's telephone a while ago, but I can't imagine why he'd be calling me, or speaking to me, or speaking at all. He's drunk, no doubt. Probably unconscious. Maybe dead.

I remember the last exchange we had, immediately after arriving back in District 12 after the fallout from my assassination of President Coin. Haymitch had walked me home, made sure I was comfortable in my little chair by the fire, and told me he'd see me tomorrow.

"Doubt it," I remember saying. And I know he knew I was right. He knew it would be too hard to face me after that day. After everything.

It would be hard for me too, I think as I rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. After everything I have lived through, everything Haymitch has lived through, after watching everything unfold, being a part of it and knowing it would hurt me to keep everything from me, seeing me struggle without being able to do anything about it, and struggling himself.

I remember not seeing or hearing from Haymitch for weeks after escaping from the Quarter Quell arena. District 13 was completely dry, and Haymitch had to be cleansed. He was dead to the world for weeks. Gone in withdrawals. Gone in nightmares and shaking and screams and loneliness. He was completely alone. All that time. I never came to his rescue. No one else did either. I'm the only one he had, really, I think. And I was too busy with myself and my own miseries.

I heave a sigh and stare into the embers glowing softly the fireplace. It's the only light in the darkened room. There's no light outside the windows, either. Night fell sometime while I was lost in my own desolate thoughts. I rock the chair a little faster, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It creaks feebly in the silent room, the only other sound the crackling fire burning low in its grate. I can hear my own breathing. How am I still breathing? How am I still alive?

Suddenly the telephone rings, high and shrill and in still house. I nearly leap out of my chair, then lay a hand over my hammering heart to calm it. Who the hell could be calling? At this hour?

I pause before sinking back into my seat. I don't really feel like getting up. I don't feel like answering, speaking, acting like I'm okay. I don't feel like anything.

But something pulls me from my place by the fireplace. I think I know somewhere who is calling and why and what I must do. I must know somehow that this is not a call to be ignored.

I heave myself up from the rocker and stumble to the phone in the kitchen. I have to cross the hall, which is cast in complete darkness, and my breath catches in my throat. My lungs are frozen in fear. How I've grown to hate the dark. Just like Haymitch. Nightmares haunt waking hours too.

But I lurch on, reaching the phone just as I'm sure it's about to fall silent. I snatch it from its receiver and bring it unsteadily up to my ear.

My hands are trembling, I think. I can't be entirely sure since the whole world seems to be quaking with midnight fear. Invisible horror. I don't know. But there's a ragged breathing on the other end of the line. Then a rough voice croaking, "Katniss?"

"Haymitch." My voice sounds alien. It's dry and cracked and raw, like my foreign skin. I haven't used my voice in weeks. I haven't had any reason to speak.

"Are you—" Haymitch stops for a moment and all I can think of is how strange it is to receive a phone call in the middle of the night from Haymitch Abernathy. "Are you awake?"

I glance out the window at the blackness beyond, then at the clock on the wall. It's somewhere between midnight and dawn, but I feel wide awake. I can't even remember the last time I slept.

"Obviously," I say without humor, without taunting, without any emotion at all. I don't know.

Haymitch clears his throat. "Right. Well. That's not why I called."

"Obviously," I say again. I've really lost my biting wit these past few months, haven't I?

"Right," says Haymitch again, and I consider hanging up the phone. This is stupid. This is so stupid. The silence on the line goes on a bit too long, and I'm about to put the telephone down when Haymitch speaks again. "You're okay, aren't you, Katniss?"

I don't really know what to say to him. I never really felt the need to censor my feelings to Haymitch, or the truth about most things. I've always been pretty straightforward and blunt with him, like he's always been to me. Well. Almost always. But I haven't told the truth about how I _am_ in a long, long time.

"Not really," I tell him honestly.

Haymitch coughs, and I can almost smell the liquor on his breath. But he's not totally trashed. I know that much. He seems to be having a rather sober conversation with me, really, but who knows? It's Haymitch.

"Me neither," he says, kind of laughing, which seems odd, but it's also a sort of Haymitch laugh, one that's very dry and self-depreciating. A bitter laugh, if you will. Like Haymitch. "I feel like shit, actually."

"Me too."

He laughs again, and I find myself missing Haymitch more than anything at that moment. I miss someone to hate the world with.

That used to be Gale, but then he started hating it a little too destructively. He didn't hate it the same way I do. The same way Haymitch does. We hate it because it gave us hell. It _was_ hell. It _is_ hell. Gale got dealt a shitty card too, sure, but not like us. He doesn't have the motives to hate the world that we have, and still he hates it enough to want to kill everyone in it without thinking about the consequences, about the hipocrisy, about the unending agony we would burn in remorse. Me anyway. Haymitch too, I think. Gale stopped understanding me a long time ago, and I gave up on him then.

But Haymitch. Haymitch is different. He gets me like no one else does. That's why I've always sought his comfort in my darkest moments. He's just like me. He understands. He hates the world the way I do. And he hates himself like I hate myself. And he hates me like I hate him. And we just have a grand old time hating everything together. And I miss that. I miss him.

"Haymitch—" I begin, but he's already talking by the time I take a breath to start.

"Listen, I'm having a rough night. I take it you are too." He laughs again, a little nervous. "Sorry. I don't know. Just—could you—? I've got an extra bottle of—"

And then I'm laughing, just like that. I didn't know I still had the capacity to. And it hurts my throat. And my lungs. And my face, grown used to a perpetual vacancy. It hurts to laugh. And yet it feels good.

"Scared of the dark, Haymitch?"

He's silent for a few moments, and I fear I might have upset him. He's not usually vulnerable like this. But it's not really his style to get offended by little comments. The kind of comments that are certainly his style to make without thinking twice about hurting someone's feelings.

"Something like that."

"I'll be there," I say, and it's like I can sense in the silence buzzing on the other end of the line that he's glad, relieved, a little less scared of what the night holds. That finally he won't have to face it alone.

"Thanks, sweetheart. And don't forget to wear a pretty little smile." And there's the Haymitch I know. The snide one, not afraid to stick one where it hurts.

"Fuck you," I say into the phone, smiling a little too hard, transforming it into a grimace but meaning it some distant, impossible way anyway. I don't know. I don't care.

It just feels so good to finally _say_ something. To feel something other than lost. Afraid. Deeply, irretrieviably sad. It feels good to not look back for just one second, but to look forward. Even if it's looking forward to a moment only a few minutes in the future. It's not the past. It's not the sick, twisted, scarring past that plagues my nightmares, driving me to tortured wakefulness filled with wretched screams that no one can hear.

Given, that moment in the near future I'm looking forward to probably holds that bottomless sadness and regret tenfold. I can never be around Haymitch without remembering the past.

But maybe it's worth it.

It's something, at least.

I hang up the phone and get myself out the door before I have time to fall back into a state of catatonic misery. Before I have time to fall back into the rocking chair by the fire. Before I have time to get lost in the constant replaying of all the terrible things I've seen as I go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

But I'm out the door. I'm safe.

For now.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Thank Jenn, 666Neme666 and GleamofAiedail for the 10th, 11th and 12th reviews that earned you, my lovely readers, this update. As I promised, enjoy.**

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><p>The night is cold, and my bare feet begin to numb as a hurry across the frozen ground of the Victor's Village green. Darkness is closing in all around me. Shadows reach for me, thin tendrils of darkness wrapping around my ankles like smoke. I focus my eyes on the only other light in the village, blocking out everything else. My fear of the night. I head straight for Haymitch's, not letting my pounding heart catch up with me. It's silly to be so afraid of the dark, but I am. And I know Haymitch is too.<p>

I climb the steps to Haymitch's front door silently and slip inside, shutting out the night. I take a few deep breaths before starting down the hall toward the kitchen, the only room with a light on. A square of yellow pools on the floor, and I step into it softly.

Haymitch is not slumped at the table like I expected him to be. Like he usually is. There's a few bottles of whiskey on the table, but Haymitch isn't clutching any in his typical rigid grasp. He's standing by the window, his back to me, his hands on the sill, leaning slightly over, peering out into the darkness.

I don't say anything at first. I don't move into the room immediately. I hover in the doorway, watching my mentor watch the silence of the night alone. The tired curve of his shoulders. The mess of black hair just covering his ears. The tension in his knuckles as he holds onto the windowsill for dear life. I swallow the lump in my throat and cross the threshold into the kitchen without a sound.

Haymitch senses me and turns just slightly, glancing at me over his shoulder. "Katniss," he says, like a sigh of relief.

I nod at him and lean against the counter across the kitchen from his place at the window.

"You look like hell."

I scowl at him, but know he's right. I've been sitting in the same chair for weeks, not bothering to get up to shower or tame the tangle of hair I have left or change my clothes or anything. I've been beyond caring for myself for a long time. What does it matter? What cameras do I need to paint myself for now? What audience do I need to wear a mask for anymore?

"I don't care."

"I know you don't," Haymitch says, turning back to the window. I wonder what he sees out there. All I see is a wall of darkness as far as the eye can see. That's all I ever see anymore.

We stand in silence, on opposite sides of the room, for awhile. I consider leaving, since Haymitch is just ignoring me anyway, but decide against it. It's so cold and terrifying outside. I stay in the warm lamplight of Haymitch's kitchen and wait for him to tell me why I'm here.

"Look, sorry if this is awkward or something," he says finally. "I don't really have many options as far as talking to people goes."

"Thanks a lot," I say. I love being a last resort. My favorite. But Haymitch has to have somebody to confide in, I suppose. I sort of need somebody for that too. No, I don't need that. But it might be nice. Maybe.

Haymitch spits out a sort of half-laugh, half-cough, and turns around to look at me. He leans against the window frame, though. As far away from me as he can get.

"You know what I mean," he says.

"Yeah," I say. "I guess."

"Anyway." Haymitch shifts uncomfortably, darting his eyes away from mine.

"Are you lonely or something?" I ask, deciding to just be blunt, like always.

Haymitch laughs again, but it looks like the effort hurts a little. I can relate. "Something like that. You know me so well."

I shrug. "I get it."

"And it's not—" Haymitch stops talking. I glance up at him. He's staring at the table, his hands shaking a little. "Sorry, I don't know. I just—I need to—" He makes it to the table in a few steps and picks up the liquor. I've never heard him like this. Having trouble speaking, focusing. But not drunk. Just—distracted, I guess. I don't know. "Do you mind?" he asks me, glancing up for a moment. I shake my head and he twists the cap off, sinking into his chair.

After a minute I join him at the table, and he passes a bottle to me. I accept it and watch him take a few swigs of his own. His attention is elsewhere so I can examine him close up. There's a shadow of stubble dusting his cheeks and neck. Dark circles bruising under his Seam eyes. Gray and hollow, staring at something I can't see. He pushes his thick black hair from his olive forehead, lined with years of suffering.

"Do you ever think about your Games?" I ask him. "The second Quarter Quell?"

He flicks his eyes to my face and hesitates. Tips the bottle back. Swallows and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Constantly."

I adjust myself in my chair, placing the unopened bottle of white liquor on the filthy table before me. "We watched it on the train," I tell him. "Last year. I saw how you won."

He nods and takes another drink. I don't know if I should go on or if I should stop and let the poor man get some peace. I decide to continue.

"Do you remember when Masilee Donner died?"

Haymitch looks at me now, steadily, his bottle poised in the air, unmoving. His gray eyes search mine, and I gaze evenly back. "Of course I do," he says quietly.

"How you held her hand?"

"Yes."

"You stayed with her while she died."

Haymitch nods and goes back to his whiskey. "I did."

I let silence fall between us, a pale curtain of understanding. How it is to watch the life drain from a person. From a child. To be all that child has to hold onto. All that child has to lull them into an eternal sleep. I think of Rue, covered in her wildflowers. I think of the family of little dark birds in District 11 during the Victory Tour. I think of the little bird poised on her tiptoes, just like Rue.

"Did you know my mother?" I ask suddenly.

Haymitch looks back to me. "When we were young?"

I nod. "After the Hunger Games. When you came back?"

"I knew her before that," he says. "Sort of. We were in the same class, you know."

I nod again. "Masilee Donner was her friend."

"She was." He swirls the liquid around in his bottle, watching it turn. "I saw her after I won. Your mother."

"You did?"

"Right after my mother and brother were killed. I had just discovered the bottle. But I remember it."

"What did she say?"

Haymitch smiles darkly at the memory, his gray eyes dancing sickly in the dim light of the bulb above the kitchen table. He returns the bottle to his lips, then removes it. "She thanked me. I was stumbling through town, drunk, sick, miserable. I hated everything. I wanted to do nothing but forget everything I saw, and you know what she did? She said something similar to what you just said. She forced me to remember."

"What did she say?" I ask again.

"'Remember when Masilee died?'" Haymitch takes a drink of his liquor and laughs without humor. "I was pissed. I was drunk. She had her hand on my arm and her face in mine and her eyes were full of pain. But I didn't give a fuck. About her. About anyone. I tried to pull away from her. I might've fallen. I don't remember. Maybe she helped steady me. I threw her off me, trying to escape the memories from the arena. Trying to escape the image of Masilee Donner's throat being ripped open. Of Masilee Donner bleeding to death, gurgling and convulsing."

I cringe at Haymitch's account. I feel bad for making him tell it.

"That's all I could see when I looked at that girl. And I didn't want to see it."

"Haymitch, you don't have to—"

He holds up a hand to stop me and continues, his eyes somewhere far away. "She thanked me for being with her friend as she died. She thanked me for being more human than a player in the Capitol's Games. It scared me, what she said. I was afraid they'd come kill her too. They'd just killed my mother. They had just killed my little brother. My baby brother. My—"

Haymitch breaks off, and I feel like I'm intruding on his private moment of grief. He's never spoken of his family before. I look away, afraid to see the agony in his eyes.

"He wasn't even old enough to be Reaped," Haymitch whispers. "Just a kid."

"Haymitch..." I reach across the table and rest my hand gently on his forearm. He accepts my small form of comfort. He knows I understand. I've lost a sibling too. I've lost a sister. The one person I loved more than anything else in the whole world.

"But your mother," he croaks, his voice thick with emotion. "She wouldn't let me pull away. She held tight. She made me hear her gratitude. She made me feel her loss. I saved someone she loved," he says forcefully, finally looking up into my face, our eyes meeting, cutting into each other, burning holes through our skulls. "I saved her best friend from dying alone. From dying a meaningless pawn of the Capitol."

I hope I did that for Rue, I think. I hope she didn't die a meaningless pawn. I hope she died a human being. That I did for her. And I know what Haymitch means.

"She saw that, what the Capitol did, and she saw what I did to spite them. Not just the edge of the arena thing, but being human too. For Masilee. And it scared me. I didn't want anyone else to die because of me. So I walked away, her words still dripping from her lips. I walked away before they could spill over, before someone heard, before she put herself in danger."

I squeeze Haymitch's wrist, overcome with gratitude myself. I owe him everything. I owe him my life several times over. I owe him Peeta's life. And Gale's. I may even owe him my mother's. He never ceases to surprise me, that's for sure.

He laughs suddenly, a dark, dry laugh. "I've been protecting you since before you were born, sweetheart."

I laugh too, tears I didn't know I had springing from my eyes. "Thank you so much."

He waves away my voice, tipping back another swig of liquor. "It was a long time ago."

"Maybe," I say. "But it matters. Stuff like that matters."

Haymitch presses his lips together into a thin line, considering his liquor for a moment. "I don't know that it does," he says after a time. "But anyway, it happened. I thought you might like to know."

I nod and squeeze his hand in mine on the table. "Thank you."

My words are not enough. They never are.

Haymitch takes another drink and looks away.

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